Meanwhile, if anyone actually does want to talk about the Busiek/Perez Avengers, feel free to start a thread about it!

The Quickening is the name of the energy within immortals that transfers to another immortal when one is beheaded.

1. If no immortal is around when an immortal loses their head, the quickening energy is said to return to the source....

2. When an immortal takes another immortals head they get their quickening energy. If other immortals are close by they do not receive the power. It only goes to the one that does the beheading. This is the real reason fights are one on one.

3. The quickening energy does not affect mortals but the pyrotechnics and explosions of nearby objects can.

4. Grass, trees and other flammable objects can burn, electric devices that are online can be overloaded and conductible materials and alloys can channel the energy.

5. If an immortal loses their head by another means, such as being chewed up by a boat engine (season 1), the power will go to an immortal if they are close by.

6. no immortal escapes the quickening. Duncan tried to run away in an episode but the power still came to him.

7. The energy is the life force, essence, memories and knowledge of an immortal. When taken in, the immortal must assimilate the energy into themselves.

8. Light Quickening: a rare occurence where the quickening of a good or saintly immortal changes the other immortal into a good person.
Darius the monk is an example of this.

9. Dark Quickening: take in too much evil from a beheaded immortal and you will overload and turn evil as the evil personas you have absorbed are too strong to assimilate. This occurred to Duncan in Season 4 and Methos had to take him to a place where he could face his inner evils and cleanse himself. A later comic mini-series retconned things so that when Connor took down the Kurgan it was also a Dark Quickening and Connor had to undergo a similar internal cleansing.

10. The PRIZE: said to be the sum total of all the knowledge and energies of all immortals combined into one immortal for good or evil.

It is said if one like Kurgan gets it that mankind is doomed to an eternity of Darkness. However despite what happened with Connor at the end of the first movie, in the revised continuity created by the series no one really knows the nature of the prize other then it is stated as the combined power of all immortals. What affect it would have on the recipient and Earth itself is not known.